SummarySpeciation is a central process in evolution that involves the origin of barriers to gene flow between populations. Species are typically isolated by several barriers and assembly of multiple barriers separating the same populations seems to be critical to the evolution of strong reproductive isolation. Barriers resulting from direct selection can become coincident through a process of coupling while reinforcement can add barrier traits that are not under direct selection. In the presence of gene flow, these processes are opposed by recombination. While recent research using the latest sequencing technologies has provided much increased knowledge of patterns of differentiation and the genetic basis of local adaptation, it has so far added little to understanding of the coupling and reinforcement processes.
In this project, I will focus on the accumulation of barriers to gene exchange and the processes underlying increasing reproductive isolation. I will use the power of natural contact zones, combined with novel manipulative experiments, to separate the processes that underlie patterns of differentiation and introgression. The Littorina saxatilis model system allows me to do this with both local replication and a contrast between distinct spatial contexts on a larger geographic scale. I will use modelling to determine how processes interact and to investigate the conditions most likely to promote coupling and reinforcement. Overall, the project will provide major new insights into the speciation process, particularly revealing the requirements for progress towards complete reproductive isolation.

Speciation is a central process in evolution that involves the origin of barriers to gene flow between populations. Species are typically isolated by several barriers and assembly of multiple barriers separating the same populations seems to be critical to the evolution of strong reproductive isolation. Barriers resulting from direct selection can become coincident through a process of coupling while reinforcement can add barrier traits that are not under direct selection. In the presence of gene flow, these processes are opposed by recombination. While recent research using the latest sequencing technologies has provided much increased knowledge of patterns of differentiation and the genetic basis of local adaptation, it has so far added little to understanding of the coupling and reinforcement processes.
In this project, I will focus on the accumulation of barriers to gene exchange and the processes underlying increasing reproductive isolation. I will use the power of natural contact zones, combined with novel manipulative experiments, to separate the processes that underlie patterns of differentiation and introgression. The Littorina saxatilis model system allows me to do this with both local replication and a contrast between distinct spatial contexts on a larger geographic scale. I will use modelling to determine how processes interact and to investigate the conditions most likely to promote coupling and reinforcement. Overall, the project will provide major new insights into the speciation process, particularly revealing the requirements for progress towards complete reproductive isolation.

Max ERC Funding

2 499 927 €

Duration

Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31

Project acronymBLINDSPOT

ProjectDiversity and Performance: Networks of Cognition in Markets and Teams

Researcher (PI)David STARK

Host Institution (HI)THE UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2015-AdG

SummaryContemporary organizations face three interrelated, but analytically distinguishable, challenges. First, they should be alert to mistakes that could be catastrophic. Second, they need to allocate attention, especially to correct past mistakes and to make accurate predictions about future developments. Third, they should be innovative, able to stand out from existing categories while being recognized as outstanding. This project investigates these cognitive challenges with the aim of developing a comprehensive sociological approach to study the social properties of cognition. Research on error detection, attention allocation, and recognizant innovation will be conducted in three distinct settings strategically chosen so the scale and complexity of the performance challenges increases across the cases. The research question that cuts across the socio-cognitive challenges asks whether and how diversity contributes to performance. 1) We first test whether social context, understood at the most basic level as the composition of a small collectivity, affects the cognitive activity of pricing. To do so, I use experimental market methods to test whether ethnic and gender diversity deflate price bubbles by disrupting herding behaviour. 2) The second study tests how the social structure of attention affects valuation. The activities involve error correction and accuracy of prediction in estimates by securities analysts; the method is two-mode network analysis; and the timing, intensity, and diversity of attention networks are the effects to be tested. 3) Whereas my first two tests examine relations among competitors, my third examines relations within and across collaborative teams. In studying the network properties of creativity, the challenge is recognizant innovation, the activity involves recording sessions in the field of music, the method is cultural network analysis, and the effects to be tested are the combined effects of stylistic diversity and social structure.

Contemporary organizations face three interrelated, but analytically distinguishable, challenges. First, they should be alert to mistakes that could be catastrophic. Second, they need to allocate attention, especially to correct past mistakes and to make accurate predictions about future developments. Third, they should be innovative, able to stand out from existing categories while being recognized as outstanding. This project investigates these cognitive challenges with the aim of developing a comprehensive sociological approach to study the social properties of cognition. Research on error detection, attention allocation, and recognizant innovation will be conducted in three distinct settings strategically chosen so the scale and complexity of the performance challenges increases across the cases. The research question that cuts across the socio-cognitive challenges asks whether and how diversity contributes to performance. 1) We first test whether social context, understood at the most basic level as the composition of a small collectivity, affects the cognitive activity of pricing. To do so, I use experimental market methods to test whether ethnic and gender diversity deflate price bubbles by disrupting herding behaviour. 2) The second study tests how the social structure of attention affects valuation. The activities involve error correction and accuracy of prediction in estimates by securities analysts; the method is two-mode network analysis; and the timing, intensity, and diversity of attention networks are the effects to be tested. 3) Whereas my first two tests examine relations among competitors, my third examines relations within and across collaborative teams. In studying the network properties of creativity, the challenge is recognizant innovation, the activity involves recording sessions in the field of music, the method is cultural network analysis, and the effects to be tested are the combined effects of stylistic diversity and social structure.

Max ERC Funding

2 492 033 €

Duration

Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31

Project acronymCASTECON

ProjectSHARING A GENOME: CASTE ANTAGONISM AND COADAPTATION IN SOCIAL INSECTS

Researcher (PI)Jeremy FIELD

Host Institution (HI)THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), LS8, ERC-2015-AdG

SummaryEusociality, in which workers sacrifice their own reproduction to rear the offspring of queens, is a major focus of interest in evolutionary biology. A key aim during recent decades has been to understand the conflicts of interest within eusocial groups. In contrast, however, little is known about the underlying genetic architecture. In this proposal, we will use a mixture of field experiments and transcriptomics to address novel questions about the evolutionary dynamics of queen-worker interactions. Borrowing concepts from the field of sexual conflict, we will investigate a new idea: that the productivity of social groups is limited because castes are constrained by inter-caste genetic correlations from simultaneously reaching their optimal (dimorphic) phenotypes. We will also quantify caste dimorphism across an environmental gradient, and investigate the plasticity of dimorphism using transplants and social manipulations. In addition, we will cross-foster individuals between nests to test for coadaptation between queens and workers. And we will test a long-standing hypothesis experimentally for the first time: that queens manipulate worker phenotype in their own interests.
The proposed research will force us to look at eusociality in a completely new way. How caste dimorphism can evolve, the possibility that its evolution could be limited by genetic constraints, and the processes that could resolve those constraints, are topics that have hardly been considered. Recent research has strongly emphasized conflict between queens and workers, but the coadaptation of complementary phenotypes may be just as important. Our approach will be multidisciplinary: we will capitalize on state-of-the-art transcriptomic technology in combination with innovative field methods, and use study systems that allow exceptional sample sizes to be obtained in the wild, where natural selection operates. The overall result will be a new and exciting perspective on queen-worker coevolution.

Eusociality, in which workers sacrifice their own reproduction to rear the offspring of queens, is a major focus of interest in evolutionary biology. A key aim during recent decades has been to understand the conflicts of interest within eusocial groups. In contrast, however, little is known about the underlying genetic architecture. In this proposal, we will use a mixture of field experiments and transcriptomics to address novel questions about the evolutionary dynamics of queen-worker interactions. Borrowing concepts from the field of sexual conflict, we will investigate a new idea: that the productivity of social groups is limited because castes are constrained by inter-caste genetic correlations from simultaneously reaching their optimal (dimorphic) phenotypes. We will also quantify caste dimorphism across an environmental gradient, and investigate the plasticity of dimorphism using transplants and social manipulations. In addition, we will cross-foster individuals between nests to test for coadaptation between queens and workers. And we will test a long-standing hypothesis experimentally for the first time: that queens manipulate worker phenotype in their own interests.
The proposed research will force us to look at eusociality in a completely new way. How caste dimorphism can evolve, the possibility that its evolution could be limited by genetic constraints, and the processes that could resolve those constraints, are topics that have hardly been considered. Recent research has strongly emphasized conflict between queens and workers, but the coadaptation of complementary phenotypes may be just as important. Our approach will be multidisciplinary: we will capitalize on state-of-the-art transcriptomic technology in combination with innovative field methods, and use study systems that allow exceptional sample sizes to be obtained in the wild, where natural selection operates. The overall result will be a new and exciting perspective on queen-worker coevolution.

Max ERC Funding

2 424 263 €

Duration

Start date: 2017-01-01, End date: 2021-12-31

Project acronymCORPLINK

ProjectCorporate Arbitrage and CPL Maps: Hidden Structures of Controls in the Global Economy

Researcher (PI)Ronen Peter Palan

Host Institution (HI)CITY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2015-AdG

SummaryPolitical science conceptualises state-market relations as balancing acts between the public sphere (the state or government) and the private sphere (the market, dominated by large corporate bodies). The expansion of the global market has been led by the rise of large and highly mobile multinational firms. Since many of these companies command turnover comparable to the GDP of middle size states, globalisation is often seen as a global shift of power from states to markets, where corporate power stems from centralisation of resources, capital and structural influence over politics and society.
Yet over the past three decades, large firms have been strategically dividing themselves into hundreds and even thousands of multi-unit, multi-layered and multi-jurisdictional cells. Typically constructed to maximise flexibility and opportunity, such de-centring of the global firm over time has increased, not decreased, the power of the corporation in world politics, society and economy. Such practices amount to a new dimension of corporate power, arbitrage power, which is the main concept underpinning this project. Arbitrage power can be defined as the capacity of economic agents to capitalise on the gaps in the institutional and legal framework of the global economy. Traditional approaches to power analysis which conventionally prioritise individual agents or clusters of interests, are of limited help when engaging with the complex ecology of a de-centred firm.
CORPLINK has two aims: a) to develop a theoretical framework to study the processes of ‘arbitrage power’ as a distinct facet of economic power; b) to develop a novel transferable methodology for the investigation of corporate arbitrage power, CPL maps (Corporate Processes and Linkages maps). Specifically, the project innovates a new tool for the study of the firm as a political actor that navigates through complex networks and modalities of the global system of governance.

Political science conceptualises state-market relations as balancing acts between the public sphere (the state or government) and the private sphere (the market, dominated by large corporate bodies). The expansion of the global market has been led by the rise of large and highly mobile multinational firms. Since many of these companies command turnover comparable to the GDP of middle size states, globalisation is often seen as a global shift of power from states to markets, where corporate power stems from centralisation of resources, capital and structural influence over politics and society.
Yet over the past three decades, large firms have been strategically dividing themselves into hundreds and even thousands of multi-unit, multi-layered and multi-jurisdictional cells. Typically constructed to maximise flexibility and opportunity, such de-centring of the global firm over time has increased, not decreased, the power of the corporation in world politics, society and economy. Such practices amount to a new dimension of corporate power, arbitrage power, which is the main concept underpinning this project. Arbitrage power can be defined as the capacity of economic agents to capitalise on the gaps in the institutional and legal framework of the global economy. Traditional approaches to power analysis which conventionally prioritise individual agents or clusters of interests, are of limited help when engaging with the complex ecology of a de-centred firm.
CORPLINK has two aims: a) to develop a theoretical framework to study the processes of ‘arbitrage power’ as a distinct facet of economic power; b) to develop a novel transferable methodology for the investigation of corporate arbitrage power, CPL maps (Corporate Processes and Linkages maps). Specifically, the project innovates a new tool for the study of the firm as a political actor that navigates through complex networks and modalities of the global system of governance.

Max ERC Funding

1 739 387 €

Duration

Start date: 2016-12-01, End date: 2020-11-30

Project acronymDAWNDINOS

ProjectTesting the locomotor superiority hypothesis for early dinosaurs

Researcher (PI)John Richard HUTCHINSON

Host Institution (HI)THE ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), LS8, ERC-2015-AdG

SummaryI seek to unify evolutionary and biomechanical research by achieving a “functional synthesis” in evolution that causally links phenotypes (anatomy) to actual performance. Did early, bipedal dinosaurs evolve advantages in their locomotor performance over other Late Triassic archosaurs (“ruling reptiles”)? This “locomotor superiority” hypothesis was first proposed to explain what made dinosaurs distinct from other Triassic taxa, perhaps aiding their survival into the Jurassic. However, the hypothesis remains untested or unfairly dismissed. I will test this question for the first time, but first I need to develop the best tools to do so.
Extant archosaurs (crocodiles and birds) allow us to experimentally measure key factors (3D skeletal motions and limb forces; muscle activations) optimizing performance in walking, running, jumping, standing up, and turning. We will then use biomechanical simulations to estimate performance determinants we cannot measure; e.g. muscle forces/lengths. This will refine our simulations by testing major assumptions and validate them for studying extinct animals, overcoming the obstacle that has long limited researchers to qualitative, subjective morphological inferences of performance.
Next, we will use our simulation tools to predict how ten Late Triassic archosaurs may have moved, and to compare how their performance in the five behaviours related to locomotor traits, testing if the results fit expected patterns for “locomotor superiority.”
My proposal pushes the frontiers of experimental and computational analysis of movement by combining the best measurements of performance with the best digital tools, to predict how form and function are coordinated to optimize performance. Our rigorous, integrative analyses will revolutionize evolutionary biomechanics, enabling new inquiries into how behaviour relates to underlying traits or even palaeoecology, environments, biogeography, biotic diversity, disparity or other metrics.

I seek to unify evolutionary and biomechanical research by achieving a “functional synthesis” in evolution that causally links phenotypes (anatomy) to actual performance. Did early, bipedal dinosaurs evolve advantages in their locomotor performance over other Late Triassic archosaurs (“ruling reptiles”)? This “locomotor superiority” hypothesis was first proposed to explain what made dinosaurs distinct from other Triassic taxa, perhaps aiding their survival into the Jurassic. However, the hypothesis remains untested or unfairly dismissed. I will test this question for the first time, but first I need to develop the best tools to do so.
Extant archosaurs (crocodiles and birds) allow us to experimentally measure key factors (3D skeletal motions and limb forces; muscle activations) optimizing performance in walking, running, jumping, standing up, and turning. We will then use biomechanical simulations to estimate performance determinants we cannot measure; e.g. muscle forces/lengths. This will refine our simulations by testing major assumptions and validate them for studying extinct animals, overcoming the obstacle that has long limited researchers to qualitative, subjective morphological inferences of performance.
Next, we will use our simulation tools to predict how ten Late Triassic archosaurs may have moved, and to compare how their performance in the five behaviours related to locomotor traits, testing if the results fit expected patterns for “locomotor superiority.”
My proposal pushes the frontiers of experimental and computational analysis of movement by combining the best measurements of performance with the best digital tools, to predict how form and function are coordinated to optimize performance. Our rigorous, integrative analyses will revolutionize evolutionary biomechanics, enabling new inquiries into how behaviour relates to underlying traits or even palaeoecology, environments, biogeography, biotic diversity, disparity or other metrics.

Max ERC Funding

2 498 719 €

Duration

Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30

Project acronymDENOVOMUT

ProjectAn integrated approach to understanding the impact of de novo mutations on the mammalian genome

Researcher (PI)Peter David KEIGHTLEY

Host Institution (HI)THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), LS8, ERC-2015-AdG

SummaryUnderstanding the process of spontaneous mutation is fundamental for understanding the genetic basis of quantitative variation, the threat posed by declining population size in conservation biology and the distribution of nucleotide variation in the genome. I will address these and other unanswered questions concerning the evolutionary impact of spontaneous mutation using the house mouse as a model system. With the first, highly replicated mutation accumulation (MA) experiment in any vertebrate, I will study the impact of mutation accumulation on fitness and other quantitative traits and on genomic variation. I will pay particular attention to the effects of mutations in the heterozygous state, since this is important for resolving two important questions: 1. The threat posed by deleterious mutation accumulation in humans, where natural selection has weakened in many populations, and in endangered species, where declining effective population size has made selection less effective, and 2. The extent by which new mutations sustain response to artificial selection. By characterizing many thousands of mutation events by genome sequencing of MA lines and wild mice, I will determine the molecular spectrum and the factors explaining mutation rate variation across the genome. I will exploit this new knowledge to address the long-unanswered question of the causes of correlations between nucleotide diversity and the recombination rate and the density of conserved genomic elements. I will develop new approaches, incorporating the simultaneous action of mutation, selection, drift and recombination, to determine the contributions of background selection and selective sweeps to variation in nucleotide diversity, and to quantify the contributions of coding and noncoding mutations to fitness variation.
The project will lead to substantial advances in the understanding of the role of new mutations in explaining phenotypic and molecular diversity in mammals.

Understanding the process of spontaneous mutation is fundamental for understanding the genetic basis of quantitative variation, the threat posed by declining population size in conservation biology and the distribution of nucleotide variation in the genome. I will address these and other unanswered questions concerning the evolutionary impact of spontaneous mutation using the house mouse as a model system. With the first, highly replicated mutation accumulation (MA) experiment in any vertebrate, I will study the impact of mutation accumulation on fitness and other quantitative traits and on genomic variation. I will pay particular attention to the effects of mutations in the heterozygous state, since this is important for resolving two important questions: 1. The threat posed by deleterious mutation accumulation in humans, where natural selection has weakened in many populations, and in endangered species, where declining effective population size has made selection less effective, and 2. The extent by which new mutations sustain response to artificial selection. By characterizing many thousands of mutation events by genome sequencing of MA lines and wild mice, I will determine the molecular spectrum and the factors explaining mutation rate variation across the genome. I will exploit this new knowledge to address the long-unanswered question of the causes of correlations between nucleotide diversity and the recombination rate and the density of conserved genomic elements. I will develop new approaches, incorporating the simultaneous action of mutation, selection, drift and recombination, to determine the contributions of background selection and selective sweeps to variation in nucleotide diversity, and to quantify the contributions of coding and noncoding mutations to fitness variation.
The project will lead to substantial advances in the understanding of the role of new mutations in explaining phenotypic and molecular diversity in mammals.

Max ERC Funding

2 499 331 €

Duration

Start date: 2017-01-01, End date: 2021-12-31

Project acronymDIVERSITY

ProjectEvolution of Pathogen and Host Diversity

Researcher (PI)Sunetra Gupta

Host Institution (HI)THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), LS8, ERC-2010-AdG_20100317

SummaryThe study of host-pathogen systems is of central importance to the control of infectious disease, but also provides unique opportunities to observe evolution in action. Many pathogen species have diversified under selection pressures from the host; conversely, genes that are important in host defence also exhibit high degrees of polymorphism. This proposal divides into two parts: (1) the evolution of pathogen diversity under host immune selection, and (2) the evolution of host diversity under pathogen selection. I have developed a body of theoretical work showing that discrete population structures can arise through immune selection rather than limitations on genetic exchange. The predictions of this framework concerning the structure and dynamics of antigenic, metabolic and virulence genes will be empirically tested using three different systems: the bacterial pathogen, Neisseira meningitidis, the influenza virus, and the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. The current theory will also be expanded and modified to address a number of outstanding questions such whether it can explain the occurrence of influenza pandemics. With regard to host diversity, we will be attempting to validate and extend a novel framework incoporating epistatic interactions between malaria-protective genetic disorders of haemoglobin to understand their intriguing geographical distribution and their mode of action against the malarial disease. We will also be exploring the potential of mechanisms that can organise pathogens into discrete strains to generate patterns among host genes responsible for pathogen recognition, such as the Major Histocompatibility Complex. The co-evolution of hosts and pathogens under immune selection thus forms the ultimate theme of this proposal.

The study of host-pathogen systems is of central importance to the control of infectious disease, but also provides unique opportunities to observe evolution in action. Many pathogen species have diversified under selection pressures from the host; conversely, genes that are important in host defence also exhibit high degrees of polymorphism. This proposal divides into two parts: (1) the evolution of pathogen diversity under host immune selection, and (2) the evolution of host diversity under pathogen selection. I have developed a body of theoretical work showing that discrete population structures can arise through immune selection rather than limitations on genetic exchange. The predictions of this framework concerning the structure and dynamics of antigenic, metabolic and virulence genes will be empirically tested using three different systems: the bacterial pathogen, Neisseira meningitidis, the influenza virus, and the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. The current theory will also be expanded and modified to address a number of outstanding questions such whether it can explain the occurrence of influenza pandemics. With regard to host diversity, we will be attempting to validate and extend a novel framework incoporating epistatic interactions between malaria-protective genetic disorders of haemoglobin to understand their intriguing geographical distribution and their mode of action against the malarial disease. We will also be exploring the potential of mechanisms that can organise pathogens into discrete strains to generate patterns among host genes responsible for pathogen recognition, such as the Major Histocompatibility Complex. The co-evolution of hosts and pathogens under immune selection thus forms the ultimate theme of this proposal.

Max ERC Funding

1 670 632 €

Duration

Start date: 2011-06-01, End date: 2017-05-31

Project acronymECOLIGHT

ProjectEcological effects of light pollution

Researcher (PI)Kevin John Gaston

Host Institution (HI)THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), LS8, ERC-2010-AdG_20100317

SummaryThe last 100 years have seen the dramatic spread of an evolutionarily unprecedented environmental change. Across huge areas, the spatial patterns and temporal cycles of light and dark that have previously remained approximately constant have been disrupted by the introduction of artificial night-time lights. This raises major concerns, given that light and dark provide critical resources and environmental conditions for organisms and play key roles in their physiology, growth, behaviour and reproduction, including the entrainment of internal biological clocks to local time. Indeed, it has long been recognised that light pollution of the night is likely to have profound consequences for the structure and functioning of populations and communities. Nonetheless, empirical studies of these effects remain wanting. This project will bring about a step change in understanding of the ecological consequences of night-time light pollution, addressing the principal question: How does the experimental manipulation of artificial night-time light influence population abundance, species composition and community structure? This will be answered using linked experimental studies. The results will have wide ramifications for understanding of the influences of rapid environmental change on population and community structure and of measures by which these can best be ameliorated.

The last 100 years have seen the dramatic spread of an evolutionarily unprecedented environmental change. Across huge areas, the spatial patterns and temporal cycles of light and dark that have previously remained approximately constant have been disrupted by the introduction of artificial night-time lights. This raises major concerns, given that light and dark provide critical resources and environmental conditions for organisms and play key roles in their physiology, growth, behaviour and reproduction, including the entrainment of internal biological clocks to local time. Indeed, it has long been recognised that light pollution of the night is likely to have profound consequences for the structure and functioning of populations and communities. Nonetheless, empirical studies of these effects remain wanting. This project will bring about a step change in understanding of the ecological consequences of night-time light pollution, addressing the principal question: How does the experimental manipulation of artificial night-time light influence population abundance, species composition and community structure? This will be answered using linked experimental studies. The results will have wide ramifications for understanding of the influences of rapid environmental change on population and community structure and of measures by which these can best be ameliorated.

SummaryThe current pace of change is such that many organisms face ever more rapid and severe fluctuations in their physical and biotic environments. A major challenge for ecologists and evolutionary biologists is in understanding how this will influence individuals, populations and ecosystems, and over what time scale such effects will occur. There is now great interest in so called 'maternal effects', which can generate rapid phenotypic responses, with both positive and negative fitness consequences in an ecological timeframe. In this project, I propose to examine a hitherto unconsidered route whereby the state of the mother alters the DNA that her offspring inherit, with profound effects on offspring reproductive performance and potential lifespan. This route is the effect of maternal state on telomeres, the DNA sequences that cap chromosomes ends; changes in the length and loss rate of telomeres could affect the longevity and reproductive output of individuals, their offspring and even grand-offspring. We still know very little about what telomere loss measurable at the cellular level actually means for organismal level performance, how it is influenced by environmental factors and intergenerational maternal effects, and how telomere dynamics relate to Darwinian fitness parameters. We lack experimental studies that track telomere loss within individuals subjected to varying environmental circumstances and relate this to organismal level outcomes for parents and offspring. I plan to address this gap in our understanding in a novel and innovative experimental programme that tests the idea that the effects of environmental stressors on senescence rates and lifespan are linked to accelerated telomere loss and that, through this route, can affect more than one generation.

The current pace of change is such that many organisms face ever more rapid and severe fluctuations in their physical and biotic environments. A major challenge for ecologists and evolutionary biologists is in understanding how this will influence individuals, populations and ecosystems, and over what time scale such effects will occur. There is now great interest in so called 'maternal effects', which can generate rapid phenotypic responses, with both positive and negative fitness consequences in an ecological timeframe. In this project, I propose to examine a hitherto unconsidered route whereby the state of the mother alters the DNA that her offspring inherit, with profound effects on offspring reproductive performance and potential lifespan. This route is the effect of maternal state on telomeres, the DNA sequences that cap chromosomes ends; changes in the length and loss rate of telomeres could affect the longevity and reproductive output of individuals, their offspring and even grand-offspring. We still know very little about what telomere loss measurable at the cellular level actually means for organismal level performance, how it is influenced by environmental factors and intergenerational maternal effects, and how telomere dynamics relate to Darwinian fitness parameters. We lack experimental studies that track telomere loss within individuals subjected to varying environmental circumstances and relate this to organismal level outcomes for parents and offspring. I plan to address this gap in our understanding in a novel and innovative experimental programme that tests the idea that the effects of environmental stressors on senescence rates and lifespan are linked to accelerated telomere loss and that, through this route, can affect more than one generation.

Max ERC Funding

2 113 818 €

Duration

Start date: 2011-04-01, End date: 2016-07-31

Project acronymEUKORIGINMIT

ProjectEukaryotic genomic origins, parasites, and the essential nature of mitochondria

Researcher (PI)Thomas Martin Embley

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

Call DetailsAdvanced Grant (AdG), LS8, ERC-2010-AdG_20100317

SummaryUnderstanding the origin and evolution of eukaryotes, their genomes and organelles, are among the most important and exciting challenges facing biology. However, determining ancient gene origins tests methods and data to their limits, and it is unrealistic to expect progress to be easy. A comparative cross-disciplinary approach involving sophisticated phylogenetics allied with mathematical understanding, offers the best hope of obtaining robust hypotheses for gene and genomic origins. It is also necessary to look beyond the narrow focus of a few model organisms, and to thoughtfully embrace a wider selection of eukaryotic diversity. Over the past few years, my lab has studied the genomes and mitochondrial homologues (mitosomes and hydrogenosomes) of parasitic protozoa that represent significant health hazards in both the developed and developing world. These microbial eukaryotes will provide the model systems for investigations which aim to deliver major progress in understanding the importance of lateral gene transfer for eukaryotic genome origins and flux, for understanding how parasites exploit their host cells, and for identifying the essential functions of organelles related to mitochondria, which now appear to be vital components of all eukaryotic cells.

Understanding the origin and evolution of eukaryotes, their genomes and organelles, are among the most important and exciting challenges facing biology. However, determining ancient gene origins tests methods and data to their limits, and it is unrealistic to expect progress to be easy. A comparative cross-disciplinary approach involving sophisticated phylogenetics allied with mathematical understanding, offers the best hope of obtaining robust hypotheses for gene and genomic origins. It is also necessary to look beyond the narrow focus of a few model organisms, and to thoughtfully embrace a wider selection of eukaryotic diversity. Over the past few years, my lab has studied the genomes and mitochondrial homologues (mitosomes and hydrogenosomes) of parasitic protozoa that represent significant health hazards in both the developed and developing world. These microbial eukaryotes will provide the model systems for investigations which aim to deliver major progress in understanding the importance of lateral gene transfer for eukaryotic genome origins and flux, for understanding how parasites exploit their host cells, and for identifying the essential functions of organelles related to mitochondria, which now appear to be vital components of all eukaryotic cells.